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DFJ Mercury led a seed investment round of $2.4 million in Ambiq Micro, the companies announced today. Ambiq has designed and manufactures durable, highly efficient micro-controllers that can be used in everything from smoke and temperature sensors in smart buildings, to smart credit cards and smart phones.

The company was founded at the University of Michigan by Dennis Sylvester and David Blaauw, professors of electrical engineering and computer science at the University’s College of Engineering, and Scott Hanson, a post-doctoral Fellow at the College of Engineering who is the company’s chief executive.

It won a $250,000 prize on July 1, 2010 from Draper Fisher Jurvetson (DFJ) and Cisco as part of a co-sponsored Global Business Plan Competition for university and business school students. Before that, Ambiq won the Pryor-Hale Award for Best Business as part of the Institute’s Michigan Business Challenge in February 2009 and several others.

Ambiq Micro also attained a small (but undisclosed amount) of pre-seed financing from the University of Michigan’s Frankel Commercialization Fund, the first student-led pre-seed investment fund in the United States.